The present invention relates to the technical field of print systems that output prints (photographs) reproducing the images recorded on films.
Most of the images recorded on photographic films such as negatives and reversals (which are hereinafter referred to as "films") are conventionally printed onto light-sensitive materials (photographic papers) by a technique generally called "direct exposure" (analog exposure) in which the image on a film is projected onto the light-sensitive material for areal exposure.
A printer that adopts digital exposure has recently been commercialized. In this "digital photoprinter", the image recorded on a film is read photoelectrically and converted into digital signals, which are subjected to various kinds of image processing to produce recording image data; a light-sensitive material is exposed by scanning with recording light modulated in accordance with the image data, thereby recording a (latent) image which is then processed photographically to produce a print.
In digital photoprinters, the image is converted to digital image data and exposing conditions can be determined by processing that image data. Hence, by using such digital photoprinters, the correction of dropouts or blocked-ups due to photography with rear light or an electronic flash, the correction of color or density failures, the correction of under- or over-exposure, the correction for the insufficiency of marginal light, sharpening and various other kinds of image processing that have heretofore been impossible or difficult to accomplish by the direct exposure technique can be performed with high degrees of freedom to produce prints of much better quality. In addition, a plurality of images can be composited into a single image or one image can be split into segments or even characters can be composited by the processing of image data. If desired, prints can be outputted after desired editing/processing in accordance with a specific application.
The capability of digital photoprinters is by no means limited to outputting the image as a print (photograph), since they enable the image data to be supplied to computers or stored in recording media such as floppy disks. Thus, with digital photoprinters, the image data can be used in various applications other than photography.
The digital photoprinter is composed of the following three basic parts: a scanner (image reading apparatus) that reads the image on a film photoelectrically with an image sensor such as a CCD sensor; an image processing apparatus in which the image data read with the scanner is subjected to various kinds of image processing (processing of image data) for determining the output image data, namely, the conditions for exposing a light-sensitive material that is to be outputted as a print; and a printer (image recording apparatus) that exposes a light-sensitive material with recording light such as optical beams modulated with the image data determined with the image processing apparatus and that performs development and other specified processes on the exposed light-sensitive material to produce it as a (finished) print.
When producing prints from films, requests are often made to perform "extra printing", or printing the image in the same frame more than once. In this case, the previous print (which is usually the print outputted in simultaneous printing) and the print (re-print) outputted in extra printing are required to reproduce images having identical colors and densities. In practice, however, due to differences between print systems or between operators in terms of evaluation and procedures, the re-print often has a different image color and density than the previous print. This has been the cause of major complaints by customers.